Judge won't block new Arizona abortion drug rules

PHOENIX (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday refused to block new Arizona rules limiting the use of the most common abortion drugs, handing a victory to conservatives in a lawsuit over restrictions that are the most stringent in the nation.

The ruling by Judge David C. Bury means that new restrictions will take effect Tuesday.

The rules ban pill-induced abortions after seven weeks of pregnancy, compared with the current nine-week restriction.

Judge David C. Bury made his ruling in response to a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood Arizona and the private abortion clinic Tucson Women's Center, who say the rules severely infringe on a woman's ability to have an abortion. He was asked to grant an injunction that would have blocked the rules from taking effect.

Planned Parenthood estimates that 800 women would have had to get surgical abortions in 2012 if the rules were in effect then. An attorney for the organization also told the judge on Wednesday that the new rules could force its Flagstaff abortion clinic to suspend operations.

In his ruling, the judge acknowledged that the new rules will make it more difficult for some women in Arizona, especially those in the northern part of the state, to get abortions as they have to travel farther and make more trips to clinics. But he said they aren't obstacles big enough to show that the rules should be blocked.

"The court finds that the injunction is not in the public interest," he said.

Attorney Mike Tyron, arguing the case for the state, described the rules as a simple shift in abortion regulations that amount to a minor inconvenience for women - and are not the heavy-handed change that opponents make them out to be.

The Arizona Legislature in the past few years has approved a number of aggressive anti-abortion measures. A House of Representatives-approved bill that is being considered by the Senate would allow for surprise, warrantless inspections of abortion clinics. Proponents of the bill say it protects women from clinics that are not up to health standards. Opponents say it puts women at risk and violates their privacy.

The Arizona rules limit RU-486 to use under the Food and Drug Administration drug label approved in 2000, which uses a much higher dosage. That dosage is no longer routinely followed because doctors have found much lower dosages are just as effective when combined with a second drug.

The rules require that the drug be administered only at the FDA-approved dosage no later than seven weeks into a pregnancy instead of nine weeks, and that both doses be taken at the clinic. The usual dose is lower and now usually taken at home, decreasing the cost and chance of complications.

Ohio and Texas have similar laws requiring the use of only FDA-approved protocols for drug-abortions that have been upheld by federal courts. But state courts in Oklahoma and North Dakota have blocked similar rules.

The Center for Arizona Policy, a powerful anti-abortion group that pushed the 2012 law, has pushed a series of anti-abortion bills that have become law. Two of those, a ban on Medicaid money for any of Planned Parenthood non-abortion services and a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, have been blocked by federal courts.